Marley Felder

Mr. Spiller

Stats Advanced

22 August 2017

TED Talk: Teach Statistics Before Calculus

After watching Arthur Benjamins TED talk about how calculus is the wrong summit for

k12 math to be aiming at. Calculus is a great subject for scientists, engineers, and economists,

one of the most fundamental branches of mathematics, but most people never use it. It would be

far more valuable to have universal literacy in probability and statistics, and leave calculus to the

20% of the population who might actually use it someday. I agree with Arthur Benjamin

completely. To do probability and statistics well at an advanced level, one does need integral

calculus, but the basics of probability and statistics can be taught with counting and summing in

discrete spaces. Arthur Benjamin offers a bold proposal on how to make math education relevant

with younger kids.